Yesterday was the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind. Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, you can find a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.

There are many ways to think about the significance of songs and the way they fit together–-this is simply one way you can look at these songs in light of this week’s theme.

Mystery: We sang this song to begin our time together proclaiming the death and Resurrection of Jesus, clinging to the sanity and victory of Jesus over the powers and principalities of the world.

All Creatures of Our God and King: We sang this song to join our voices with the whole of creation acknowledging the grandeur of what God has made.

Pulse: We sang this song to petition the Spirit of God to reawaken us to our interconnectivity with all of God's creation.

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: This song is a plea for God to hold us in the midst of struggle, while also confessing our hope that the love of God has a grip that not even death can break.

Waking Life: This song is about God breaking through the categories that we construct to organize people we perceive to be different from us, replacing our need to fight with a desire to reconcile.

Noise: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Noise then: This song acknowledges the wide gap between what it is to be God and what it is to be us, and proclaims that in spite of this gap, God has moved toward us.

Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.

ITLOTC

(In The Life Of The Church)

Pentecost

What's It Like To Be You (Adair McGregor)

After Church Picnic

This Sunday, after church, we are going to have a picnic. We are going to picnic inside, so as soon as the service is over, go grab your lunch and bring it back. UBC will have drinks, games, and a summer classic movie. This is a great time to get to know our community, and relax before the school year begins. If you have any questions, please email toph@ubcwaco.org

ubc[care] survey

For most of this year, we’ve been reckoning with the fact that we’re not great at connecting with one another—that while we might all feel like we belong in this community called ubc, there’s a general sense of disconnection or loneliness among us. Taylor and Jamie have been working with a group of ubcers to talk through some potential remedies for this. While we have been working directly with these 8 conversations partners for the sake of having a small enough group for productive conversation, we are very interested in having as many of your voices in the mix as possible as we move forward. We’ve been using a set of questions in an effort to trace the edges of this problem, and we’ve put them in a survey form that you can fill out. Your feedback, along with the feedback we’ve already received from our conversation partners, will form the foundation of our discussions moving forward, so we’d love if you would take a moment to fill it out. You can find it at ubcwaco.org/care. If you have any follow up questions, feel free to email jamie@ubcwaco.org or taylor@ubcwaco.org.

Cuba Partnership

We will be taking our first trip to Cuba, the week of November 11th. This trip is open to all ages, but will have a special opportunity for seminary students. There will be an interest meeting after church on the 19th, in the Piano Room. If you have any questions, please email toph@ubcwaco.org

Meet Our Newest UBCer

Palmer Quinn Sandvall

Birthday: July 2, 2018Birth Weight: 8 lbs 10 ozBirth Height: 21 in

Enneagram Number: 7

Parishioner of the Week

Kelly Tetens and Paul Fillmore for being the parent chaperones on our recent Passport Camper trip.

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies. If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, or if you have a concern about any aspect of our liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

we have gathered to worship the God of mercy

the One who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love

to be caught up in God’s story

and to find our own stories changed

to be transformed by the Spirit of God

that we might bear the Kingdom of Godin our ordinary lives

amen.

Scripture

Psalm 51:1-13

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight,so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

Mark 6:1-13

He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded.

They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.

He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”

So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Yesterday was the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost. Our songs were gathered with this in mind. Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, you can find a brief example of one way you might think of these songs. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.

There are many ways to think about the significance of songs and the way they fit together–-this is simply one way you can look at these songs in light of this week’s theme.

Noise: This song acknowledges the wide gap between what it is to be God and what it is to be us, and proclaims that in spite of this gap, God has moved toward us.

Wayward Ones: This is our communion hymn, and it contemplates Christ's self-giving love that is displayed and remembered in the eucharist.

Fall Afresh: This song offered us language to seek a rekindling of the Spirit in our lives, reorienting our attention toward God and the Kingdom of God in the world.

Just the Same: This song is about the versions of faith that we evolve through over time, how, for better or worse they never really leave us, and it grasps for some sort of security in the midst of this.

There: This song looks to God as an Anchor within the chaos of life.

Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.

ITLOTC

(In The Life Of The Church)

Pentecost

a goodbye (by jamie)

At ubc we are well-versed in goodbyes. That sort of comes with the territory when so many of our community are only in Waco to earn a degree or two. That usually provides, at most, a 4-6 year window to know and love someone before we send them off into the world. Those goodbyes are hard enough, but there are rare occasions where a piece of our community is pulled away after we’ve had much more time to get used to having them around.

Jacob Robinson has been at ubc for 10 years. He has gifted us with a number of bizarre videos, a couple of years as an employee in the sound booth, and more years than that as a musician. His creative voice has shaped many of the things we’ve done, but the greatest gift he has given us has been himself.

One of the first things I noticed about Jacob when we became friends in 2011 was that he carried around a small notebook and would jot stuff down in it. It took me a while to figure out that he was often recording jokes or phrases that he heard from people around him. On the one hand, this could be read as creative person doing typical creative person things. But it mostly read as the practice of a person who was taking the time to notice life happening around him, grabbing it before it passed him by.

A few years later, Jacob and I were on a plane to go play at a church camp in Seattle, and he asked me to read a play he had written—I didn’t know that he wrote plays. I read it straight through, as Jake offered commentary and clarification, and when I finished, I turned to him and said, “Jacob. How did you do this? This world, these people, came from your brain.” The story wove together awkward humor, mental illness, and the effects of trauma, into a narrative that was both heavy and bright. I would later discover that this was essentially Jake’s wheelhouse, which probably explains the fact that, if memory serves, he just laughed when I asked him how he wrote it. What explanation is there? Writers write.

I’ve been thinking about these two stories a lot as we draw near to Jacob’s departure. I don’t necessarily know why it’s been these two; I could probably produce a long document of similar stories from my time with Jacob. But I do know that they remind me that Jake is a person who knows, almost naturally, what it is to embrace beauty.

Beauty is an event, or a way of seeing, or a realm of experience—I don’t really know. It’s in the offhanded remarks of friends and the half-heard remarks of strangers. It’s in the heights of joy, and that cutting edge where cosmos begins to re-emerge from chaos. It’s making something of the pieces that are left when the thing you love is shattered. It is resurrection, and it is everywhere.

It is best embraced when seen, best seen when noticed, and best noticed when looking, even when looking is difficult.

And to embrace beauty is in some way to be embraced by it. To be caught up in something beyond the somethings, finding depth where monotony had been, a road to healing where wounds had been, and perhaps, in one way or another, to pass it along.

So as we prepare to send Jake off into the next chapter of his life at Columbia University, into the arms of the winners of Tony Awards and Pulitzer Prizes, we do so with gratitude for the time we’ve shared and the pieces of himself he is leaving with us.

Stay gold, my friend.

Meet Our Newest UBCer

Name: Julie Kohr Gould

DOB: June 28, 2018

Birth weight: 6'10

height: 19 inches

Enneagram Number: 6

Parishioner of the Week

Towns and August Letendresse for working the candy station at the last UBC/SWCC movie day.

Random Pic To Generate Clickbait Traffic

Work is Worship

Greeters: Walters

Coffee Makers: Burns

Mug Cleaners: Trans

Money Counter: McNamee

Welcome Station: Wilhite

Announcements

Sermon Text:

8-12 After Church Picnic

8-19 Kindergarten Commission

8-26 Welcome Back Fiesta Lunch

Leadership Team

If you have a concern or an idea for UBC that you’d like to share with someone that is not on staff, feel free to contact one of our leadership team members.

Chair- Emma Wood: emmaj.wood@yahoo.com

Byron Griffin: byrontgriffin@gmail.com

Kerri Fisher: Kerri_Fisher@baylor.edu

Adam Winn: adamwinn68@yahoo.com

Bridget Heins: bheins@hot.rr.com

Jeremy Nance: Jeremy Nance <Jeremy.J.Nance@L3T.com>

Joanna Sowards: jo.sowards@gmail.com

Student Position: Samuel Moore: samuel_moore2@baylor.edu

Student Position: Leah Reed: Leah_Reed@baylor.edu

UBC Finance Team

Do you have a question about UBC’s financial affairs? Please feel free to contact any of your finance team members.

JD Newman: JD_Newman@baylor.edu

Hannah Kuhl: HannahKuhl@hotmail.com

Justin Pond: pondjw@gmail.com

Anna Tilson: Anna_Tilson@jrbt.com

Doug McNamee: douglas.mcnamee@gmail.com

UBC HR Team

If you have concerns about staff and would like contact our human resources team, please feel free to email any of the following members.

ITLOTC

(In The Life Of The Church)

Pentecost

What's It Like To Be You

I'm starting a new segment in the newsletter called, "what it's like to be you," in which I interview random UBCers. our first episode includes the champion Jack Parker, world class guitar shredder.

Here I asked Jack a question that was recorded on my computer, but not on my laptop from which i'm now editing. The question was something like, "what image or story from scripture is currently most helpful for you in your journey toward God?"

Meet Our Newest UBCer

Brynlee Ruth Blaylock

Birthday: June 15, 2K18

Weight: 7 lbs 1 oz

Height: 20 inches

Enneagram Number: 1

Parishioner of the Week

Joanna Sowards for agreeing to preach in my absence this week.

Random Image To Generate Clickbait Traffic

Now that we are finished with our 80's toys series, we begin our new series on 90's bands.

Work is Worship

Greeters: Blaylocks

Coffee Makers: Hoymeyer

Mug Cleaners: Micah Titterington

Money Counter: Tilson

Welcome Station: Broadduses

Announcements

Sermon Text: John 6:1-21 (Please be in prayer for our special guest preacher Joanna Sowards).

8-12 After Church Picnic

8-19 Kindergarten Commission

8-26 Welcome Back Fiesta Lunch

Leadership Team

If you have a concern or an idea for UBC that you’d like to share with someone that is not on staff, feel free to contact one of our leadership team members.

Chair- Emma Wood: emmaj.wood@yahoo.com

Byron Griffin: byrontgriffin@gmail.com

Kerri Fisher: Kerri_Fisher@baylor.edu

Adam Winn: adamwinn68@yahoo.com

Bridget Heins: bheins@hot.rr.com

Jeremy Nance: Jeremy Nance <Jeremy.J.Nance@L3T.com>

Joanna Sowards: jo.sowards@gmail.com

Student Position: Samuel Moore: samuel_moore2@baylor.edu

Student Position: Leah Reed: Leah_Reed@baylor.edu

UBC Finance Team

Do you have a question about UBC’s financial affairs? Please feel free to contact any of your finance team members.

JD Newman: JD_Newman@baylor.edu

Hannah Kuhl: HannahKuhl@hotmail.com

Justin Pond: pondjw@gmail.com

Anna Tilson: Anna_Tilson@jrbt.com

Doug McNamee: douglas.mcnamee@gmail.com

UBC HR Team

If you have concerns about staff and would like contact our human resources team, please feel free to email any of the following members.

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies. If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, or if you have a concern about any aspect of our liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

we have gathered to worship the God who saves

the one who is making all things new

to enter into the story of God and the people of God

that our own stories might be changed

and to seek the Spirit of God

hoping to formed more fully in the way of Christ,that we might bear his self-giving lovein our ordinary lives